Cupid
by Arlath's Star
Summary: Valentine's Day never turns out as it's supposed to at the Hub, especially when Jack is involved.


**I promised you a Valentines Day fic, so here it is! **

**Err… It's a bit odd. Just to warn you. **

Cupid

Gwen had probably been the first member of the Team to remember what date it was – she was the one with a live-in partner, after all. But she, like everyone else, forgot the other special significance the day held. She only realised when she arrived at the Hub, which meant that she was the last member of the team to find out.

The first unusual thing she noticed upon entering was that the tourist office was much fuller than it usually was. Normally it was empty, or just contained Ianto. It certainly wasn't designed to hold three people all trying to work at the same time.

"Hi Gwen!" said Tosh, looking up. Her voice sounded like she was either trying not to panic or not to laugh; Gwen couldn't decide which.

"Err, hi." Gwen waved her hand in the direction of the secret door. "Have we been locked out or something?"

Owen leaned over the desk, looking very serious. "Gwen, I want you to stay calm, ok?"

"Ok?"

"There's an alien loose in the Hub."

"Oh." Gwen let out a breath. This could be very, very bad. "What sort of alien?"

"Well," said Ianto. "The CCTV shows that it's about 6 feet tall, basically humanoid but with wings."

"Any weapons?"

"A bow and arrows."

"A what? What kind of alien are we talking about here? How dangerous is it?"

Tosh gave a small giggle, and Gwen frowned at her. This was still a serious situation, even if their infiltrator was armed with medieval weaponry.

"Wings and a bow and arrows…" she mused. "Sounds like some sort of angel or cupid or something. Oh God! It's Jack, isn't it?"

The other three laughed at her horrified outburst.

"Yes." Tosh said. "Our reconnaissance mission confirmed that."

"And so you're all up here because…?"

"Because we didn't want to spend time in the same room as a grown up man wearing wings and a diaper." Owen replied bluntly.

"And you find it embarrassing?" Ianto asked. "He said he'd take me out for a meal tonight!"

The other three exchanged amused glances. "Are you still going?" Gwen asked.

"No!"

They stood in silence for a while. "I need to go and get my laptop, then." said Gwen eventually.

"Good luck."

"Thank you, Owen."

Owen, Tosh and Ianto watched as she disappeared into the depths of the Hub. "Bring up the CCTV footage again." said Owen lazily.

***

Jack was annoyed. His team was avoiding him – he'd seen them all squashed up there in the tourist office – which meant that there was no one to talk to and no one to tease. That was when the Cog door lights started flashing. He grinned.

***

"Back so soon?" Owen asked innocently.

Gwen checked the door behind her to make sure it was properly closed. "Is there actually something wrong with him?"

"Yes." replied Owen and Ianto simultaneously.

"But not as in some sort of alien drug or machine or something." Tosh added.

"He's just being Jack." Owen stated unhelpfully.

"So, how did it go then?" Ianto asked.

"Oh, fine, fine."

"You don't have your laptop."

"Yeah… I realised I didn't really need it. I've got some files to sort out." Gwen slammed the wad of hurriedly-seized paper down on the small patch of free space in front of her.

"That's the paper copy of all the emails sent between Torchwood Three and UNIT for the past three years."

Gwen examined the pile of sheets in front of her to see if Ianto was joking. He wasn't. "Is that a problem?" she asked, trying to sound as though this was exactly what she had gone down for, and doing her best to ignore Owen's sniggering.

"Oh, no. I was wondering who Jack had delegated it to. When we get back downstairs I can find you all the ones for Torchwood One and Two to sort through as well."

***

Tosh tried to stretch her legs and bumped into at least two other people.

"Now you understand what I mean when I say I want a larger office." said Ianto, without looking up.

***

"What's that noise?" Gwen asked curiously.

"What noise?" Tosh asked, listening closely.

"That sort of 'wher-wher-wher' noise. A bit like the Rift alarm going off, only quieter."

"That would be the Rift alarm going off, only quieter." Ianto remarked, but was ignored by most of the others.

"Since when did the Rift alarm make a 'wher-wher-wher' noise?" Owen asked sceptically.

"Well, what noise does it make then?"

"It's like a, well a 'wrooaw-wrooaw-wrooaaw' sound." Owen hazarded, much to Gwen's amusement.

"Major Rift spike at Cardiff central library" Tosh intoned rapidly, slightly quicker on the uptake than either of them, her fingers already flying over her laptop keyboard. "Ianto, will you block their phone-lines? I've got a feeling this is something major."

"Onto it."

"_Tosh? Come in." _Jacks voice crackled into life over the intercom system.

"Yeah, Jack, I know. I'm checking their CCTV now."

"_All of you grab the kit you need and wait on the plass. I'll meet you in the SUV." _

Ianto tapped into his comms. "The library's less than 400 yards away, Jack."

"_Style, Ianto, style." _

***

By the time they'd climbed into the SUV it was too late.

Owen turned pale, and Gwen buried her head in her hands. Tosh continued to tap frantically away at her keyboard, hoping it wasn't true, whilst Ianto made a quiet moaning noise under his breath.

Jack had not got changed.

He had not even bothered to throw his coat on.

"Jack…?" Owen's voice trailed off.

"What?" Jack took a corner at high speed.

"… the outfit…"

"He could just not come in." Gwen suggested hopefully. "Whatever it is, I'm sure we can handle it by ourselves."

"I've got a visual." Tosh announced. "It's like a giant worm, or a serpent. About twenty feet long, and grey. And it's got huge teeth."

"Ok then," Gwen muttered under her breath. "Maybe not."

The SUV skidded to a halt in front of the library doors – parking neatly had never been considered 'stylish' in Jack's book, even if it did save on parking tickets.

They advanced cautiously through the entrance lobby. A few people were still fleeing the building. The sight of Jack entering caused a few of them to do a double-take, but they quickly decided that whatever lay behind them was worse.

"It ate my book! It ate my book!"

Ianto stepped back to allow the hysterical man to pass. "So much for containment."

"We'll track them via the CCTV later, and give them retcon." Jack stated, taking his gun out of his pocket. "But right now we are sorting _this_ problem out." He turned to Tosh. "Where is it?"

"The top floor. That's where the buggers always are. Up as many flights of stairs as possible."

"I didn't want your opinion, Owen. Tosh?"

"Ground floor. Children's fiction section."

Ianto pointed mutely in the direction they wanted. Jack wasn't surprised – Ianto seemed like the kind of person who'd memorise a library layout.

As they walked quietly over, guns and sedative at the ready, Gwen asked quietly; "Jack? I know it sounds silly, but, well, could it be a bookworm? I mean, we are in a library. And that man said it ate his book."

Owen snorted softly under his breath. Gwen could be ridiculous sometimes.

"I think more _bookwyrm_." Ianto said quietly, as they rounded the last set of shelves.

Ianto was right. Curled up on its book hoard, its spiked tail just encompassing the overspilling heap, the scaly beast looked like something out of Lord of the Rings. Perhaps it was. This was a library, after all, and the strangest of things can happen in libraries, especially when you add Rift energy into the mix.

"What do we do?" Tosh whispered.

A fiery eye opened and surveyed them, then closed again. The tail twitched briefly.

Jack bent down and picked up a half-eaten book off the floor. "It likes fantasy." He said quietly. "And we need to distract it with something."

"No volunteers there." Owen commented under his breath.

"Well, if it's looking for fantasy characters…" Ianto tailed off under Jacks gaze. "Sorry, sir, but it is true."

"No," Jack said, drawing them back a little, a plan already forming in his mind. It wasn't a very good plan, but it _was_ a plan. "Tell me: what's the best fantasy story ever? What would it really like to eat?"

"So the plan's to throw it a book and then sedate it while it's not looking?" Owen asked sceptically.

"Glad you volunteered for the key role, Owen! Now come on – which book?"

"Harry Potter?" Gwen suggested, trying to think.

"Some of Homer's works?" Tosh hesitated. "Probably the Odyssey?"

"I think Beowulf or Lord of the Rings." Ianto stated decisively.

Owen pulled a book off the shelf next to him. "'The Return of the King'. Will that do?"

Jack nodded and took it off him, motioning him to sneak round and stand ready with the syringe of sedative. He approached the 'bookwyrm' cautiously, and tossed their offering down in front of it from a distance, while Owen carefully crept round behind.

The eye opened. The head moved. The team held their breath as a long tongue snaked out and tested the book. A twitch of the tail swished it into the pile.

Owen swore, then quickly moved back to his place next to the others as the eye opened again.

Gwen was examining the books on the floor again. She stood up, clutching a handful of half-eaten sheets of paper. "It's not fantasy it likes; it's romance."

"Romance?"

"Of course!" Tosh whispered. "Valentine's Day!"

"As if we hadn't got enough trouble out of that already." Ianto muttered under his breath, echoing Owen's thoughts.

"Are you sure?" Jack asked, but a quick perusal of the pages proved that Gwen was right. "Ok, rethink. What's the best romance ever?"

Ianto tapped his fingers on his nose. "Ovid. Ovid's 'Amores'."

"Who?" Gwen asked, but Ianto was already rushing over to the classical section.

"Ovid was a Roman poet." Tosh explained, as they hurried along in Ianto's footprints. "He wrote a lot of love poetry. I'm not sure it's the best ever, but if it's not in this section at least it hasn't been eaten yet."

Ianto had returned, book in hand. "Here," he said, handing it to Jack.

Jack nodded, and they all returned to their positions. He used the same strategy he had before, striding up and throwing the book down in front of the creature's nose.

The eye opened. The head moved. The nose sniffed. The jaws opened.

"Owen! Go!" Jack shouted, sprinting towards the beast himself. There was a roar as Owen jabbed the syringe of sedative into its back, and the tail lashed furiously. Owen dashed back to avoid being hit, with Jack close behind him.

The others watched as a couple of pages fell to the floor, followed by the wyrm's head.

"Omnia vincit amor." Ianto quoted, and the others turned to look at him as one. "What? It's 'love conquers all'. I thought it might be appropriate."

"Yeah, very good, Teaboy." Owen said grumpily. "And now we have to drag this bloody great serpent back to the SUV. And it's not going to fit."

Jack turned to Gwen, grinning slightly. "Fancy a quick mobile call?"

"You only hired me because of Rhy's job!"

"Of course not. That was just a bonus. Now make that call."

Gwen strode off, muttering, while Owen and Ianto started trying to drag the wyrm towards the door.

"Rhys? Yes… I'm in the library… Yes, the library… I'm working, Rhys… look, we need a lorry… Yes, again… A giant worm… I'm serious, Rhys!"

***

They were glad they'd asked for Rhys' help in the end, as it took all six of them to drag the monster to the lorry, all the while having a huge debate about what they were actually going to do with it once they got it back to the Hub – they couldn't exactly feed it cheap romance novels for ever, and Myfanwy was more than enough trouble on her own.

"This wasn't really the kind of Valentine's day I was expecting." Rhys commented as they slammed shut the door of their largest cell "helping Cupid rescue a giant snake and all that."

"It would have been far more romantic if we'd had to rescue someone from it." Tosh said thoughtfully.

"That can be arranged." Ianto pointed out dryly. "And we do now get a romantic evening clearing up Cardiff library and retconning all the book-lovers."

Everyone shuddered. Clearing up afterwards had to be one of the worst parts of this job.

"Tomorrow?" Gwen suggested hopefully.

"You'd better let her off this evening," Rhys threatened Jack, "Or you're refunding the restaurant places I've booked."

Ianto frowned as he remembered something. "Are you going to wear that" he indicated Jack's outfit with disgust "all night?"

Jack grinned. "Why? Is it embarrassing?"

"Which restaurant were you thinking of going to?" Owen asked nonchalantly. Tosh and Gwen exchanged glances.

"That one just up the road from here…"

"The one overlooking the Bay, just round the corner." Rhys supplied, looking worried. "That does the really nice pasta."

"The one that I'm going to." Owen finished sourly.

"Who're you taking, Owen?" Gwen asked on Tosh's behalf. The technician was suddenly looking very nervous.

"None of your business, Cooper. And who said I was taking anyone?" Behind Owen, Tosh's shoulders slumped slightly.

"Because you can't eat anyway so there's no point in you going alone?" Ianto suggested.

Owen glared at him. "Ok, ok. I'm taking Tosh."

Tosh's smile lit up a large part of the room. The shadowy corners were still worrying about all the social problems involved in eating out in the same place.

"Alright, sir." Ianto said forcefully, looking Jack in the eyes for the first time all day. (They'd spent all day refusing to even look in his direction, in case it became obvious that they knew him) "You are getting changed now, or it will be _you_ who's doing all that cleaning up tomorrow."

Put that way, Jack didn't really have a choice.

**I really, really don't know where half of this came from, or what mental illness I was suffering from when I wrote it. One day I'll write a story with a vaguely plausible alien threat, if such a thing exists. This was originally meant to have a lot more romance in it too, but it seems to have disappeared in the writing – probably a side effect of knowing that the nearest I'm going to get to romance this Valentine's day is posting this and translating Ovid's Amores. **

**I couldn't remember what noise the Rift alarm made when I was writing, and I didn't have time to check, so I basically made it up. Hopefully it's not far off, though now I read it back it sounds more like the TARDIS one. Maybe Gwen and Owen are just really bad at impersonation. **

**I'm the kind of person who memorises a library layout. And I also think it's so important that I'll go on the internet to research the layout of the main Cardiff one, though I daresay I've got something wrong. Ah well. Other universe and all that. **

**So, does anyone want an April Fools Day one? I promise it will be more sensible than this!**


End file.
